Our weekend

Saturday morning Anthony and Lori left to go back home. Dick and Ray spent the day getting their hunting stuff ready. Later in the afternoon I met Frank and he took Destiny for an overnight stay. Dick and I actually had a quiet evening at home.

This morning Dick and Ray packed everything into the Explorer for their hunting trip, came to church, and left directly from there for the hunting cabin in Juniata County.

I went to Subway for lunch, then went to school to pull costumes for six kids who will be getting their picture taken first thing Tuesday morning by a local newspaper reporter. I met Frank at 4:00 to get Destiny, we went to Blockbuster for a movie, and to Two Cousins Pizza to get take-out, and came home to my nice, warm, dry house. All day it has been raining. In fact, during my drive to pick up Destiny it was a windy, driving rain. When we got to Blockbuster, I stepped out of my car into a big puddle of water - in my holey Crocs! That did not feel good, let me tell you.

Destiny and I both have off school tomorrow, so she's staying here tonight. I'm so glad I don't have to drive to Reading to take her home.

Dick and Ray will be gone till Tuesday evening. Then Ray will return to Virginia Beach and Dick and I will return to normal - whatever that is.

I was looking through my pictures and found some I never posted. This first one is of Dick playing basketball at the gym - one of his absolutely favorite activities. He's the old guy getting ready to make a shot.

The next two pictures were taken when Miki and her kids were here from Sweden in October. Don't we look like a tired, grouchy bunch as Anthony was getting the camera timer ready?

But never fear! There was plenty of life and laughter ready to burst out! Wow, I surely wish we didn't all live so far apart. But I'm glad we have such good times when we're together.

Pictures from Lisa

No wonder Sophie misses her Pepaw.

Pictures from Thanksgiving Day at Lisa's

Isn't this how we all feel after eating a Thanksgiving meal??!! I wonder how many pictures we have over the years of Jeremy napping on a couch with dogs snuggling against him? A lot of them, let me tell you!!

The day after Thanksgiving

Yesterday was a good day for sitting around....

...and eating leftovers!

But Destiny got bored with that. So I got an old tee-shirt of mine and cut out the shape of a raglan sleeved jacket for Destiny to sew together for her American Girl doll. For some reason she wanted her doll to wear it backwards!

Here's a close-up view of her handiwork! And she also put that Velcro strip on the opening by herself. She was feeling quite accomplished!

Later Anthony and Lori participated in the Black Friday shopping craziness. But it was to my advantage. They came home with a new flat-screen computer monitor - an early Christmas gift for us. For quite a while he's been saying that my monitor is getting old and things are not as sharp as they should be, nor the colors of my pictures as true as they should be. Thank you, Anthony and Lori!!

I kept in touch with Dick throughout the day. He left a very broken-hearted Sophie in Florida. Lisa said she sobbed mournfully for 20 minutes after they took him to the airport. He played a voice mail for us last night that they had left on his cell phone. Sophie said in a very quivery voice, "We miss you." It brings tears to your eyes, I'm telling you.

Dick drove straight from the Baltimore Airport to the Hershey football stadium. (He had kept winter clothes in his car to change into!) Our local football team was in a championship play-off game there, and he didn't want to miss it. He called me at 7:05, as he neared the stadium and was listening to the game on the radio, and excitedly announced that our team had already scored a touchdown. Would you believe that was the ONLY score they made all night???? The other team won 15 to 7, not a high-scoring game. I hope Dick thinks it was worth being there, ha, ha, ha!

We were very glad to welcome him home around 10 PM.

Our turkey story

When I told people that we were planning to deep fry our turkey, they all had stories and said they want to hear how it goes for us. Well, we have a story. Here's Ray setting up the fryer outside in the cold.

He wanted me to take this picture for you,Thyda - he's making a heart to show that he's missing you. And he's pouting.

Here he's holding the trusty fire extingisher that we were warned to have nearby. Everything we read warned against overheating the oil and starting a fire. We were ready!

WELL, we most certainly would not have needed to worry about starting a fire. We simply could NOT get the oil to heat up to the 350 degrees that the directions said it needed to be before putting the turkey in it. We moved the aparatus to a more sheltered location between the sunroom and the shed, thinking maybe it was too windy out in the open. We took some of the oil out of the kettle. But 250 degrees was as high as it would go.

Finally, after about two hours, Frank brought the kettle in to heat it on the electric stove, and in a short time the temp was 350 degrees.

At the same time Ray cut the turkey up so it would cook in a shorter amount of time.



Then they loaded the cut-up turkey into the wire basket, put the kettle of oil on the gas burner again, and slowly, carefully dropped the turkey into the oil. It probably took another hour, but eventually they put the turkey into my roast pan and brought it in to the oven. I looked at it and tasted it and pronounced it finished. And it WAS delicious, believe it or not!


The craziest thing about our day was the timing of everything. I had decided we would eat at 1:00. So I was on Ray's case to get the oil started at 11:30. Then Lori and Anthony called at 12:15 and said they had just left State College and would not arrive until about 2:30 and we shouldn't wait for them. I assured them we would wait. Then Sam called and said, "I'm running late. I just left home." (He lives one hour away.) I said, "Don't worry, Anthony and Lori just left State College. You're not late." THEN, surprise of all surprises, Frank arrived with his two little boys at 1:00 on the dot. Frank - the one who is NEVER, EVER on time, the one we have waited for every time we have ever had a meal!

It was only after that that we decided that there was a REAL problem with our turkey fryer, and it took the brains of Sam, Ray, and Frank, and a few phone calls to Dick in Florida to come up with some solutions. When Anthony and Lori arrived we were still figuring things out, and we ended up having a crazy, funny time together that we will always remember!

While we worked out all the complications of our meal, Destiny had lots of time to play with her little brothers, J'von and Adrias.

Adrias is so CUTE and sweet we could have just eaten him up.

For a long time he didn't want anything but to be carried around by Destiny. She just loved it.

J'von enjoyed some of Destiny's toys.

At LAST, at around 4 PM all the food was ready and all the people were here and we had our Thankgiving dinner! The turkey WAS delicious!

Anthony and Lori, Ray, and Sam.

Frank, Destiny, and J'von.

And I was at the head of the table where Dick usually sits.

After waiting all that time to eat, we were STUFFED in a very short time. Could it be that we ate too much of my Pumpkin Praline dessert while we waited??

This evening my sister Mary Ellen came over and we had a fun evening of playing games, especially Scrabble. Lori won, as usual, but barely. We (Mary Ellen, myself, Anthony, and Lori) all scored within 9 points of each other. No game night is complete without a few good belly laughs, and we had them, believe me!

Down in Florida Lisa hosted the "Stragglers' Thanksgiving" for friends and family who had no other family gathering to attend - a total of about 16 people. Jeremy's contribution to the meal was baked corn, which I was making for our meal as well. As usual, he called me several times this morning, before, during, and after the process of making it. I love it! I just got pictures from Dick from their day, but I'll post them tomorrow.

Gearing up for the big meal

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

I think mine will be happy, even though my sweet hubby is in Florida. I'm happy that our kids in Florida will be able to have Thanksgiving with their dad. And I'm happy that almost all the rest of our kids will be here with me - all but the Swedes. I have to tell a story about Miki. Even though Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Sweden, Miki likes to celebrate it with her family and make a traditional meal. But this year she got the dates mixed up, and they celebrated Thanksgiving last Thursday. But who cares?

Anyway, after school yesterday I went to Reading to pick up Destiny. Last evening Ray made the long, holiday drive home from Virginia Beach, complete with being rear-ended. He's okay, and his car isn't damaged much at all, just the license plate. He said the guy that rear-ended him was in the Coast Guard and the police officer was a former Marine, and of course Ray's in the Navy. They got a laugh out of that.

Anthony and Lori will be driving here from State College this morning, Sam from Downingtown, and Frank from Hershey, along with one or two of his adorable little boys.

Ray got home last night after I had already gone to bed. When I got up this morning, this is what I found.

Yes, Ray wants to deep fry our turkey. I've read loads of info on the internet, plus the fryer comes with a long list of do's and don'ts. So this should be fun. I'm sure I'll have pictures to post later!

A day at the zoo

No, I wasn't at the zoo today. Once again, the events of my day were mundane, so I'm living vicariously though Dick. He and Jeremy took Sophie to the zoo. (I forgot to ask if Lisa also went along, but I didn't see her on any of the pictures.)

I'm ready to go to bed. Tomorrow we just have half a day of school. I'm going to be having the Middle School Chorus for two periods, and we'll go through our entire musical from beginning to end, including the drama, for the first time. We're doing one by Dennis and Nan Allen called The Road to Bethlehem. I had done it with the middle school in 2001.

A day's work in Florida

While I was putting in a normal, uneventful day of school in cold PA, Dick winged his way south and ended up SWEATING!!! I'll let Sophie tell you all about it.

"This morning we picked up my pepaw at the airport, then stopped at Lowe's for some sod for another one of my mom's landscaping projects. Then I had to get the soil ready. I'm a really hard worker."

"Next I hauled a load of sod on my tractor to the landscaping site."

"Look at that! A nice grassy plot. I guess my mommy got tired of planting things there."

"After my shower this evening, my pepaw read a book to me. I think he was sleepier than I was - he got up at 3:15 this morning."

P.S. "If I got any of my story wrong, my mommy will have to make corrections in the comment section."

Lunch with my sis

After church today my sister Mary Ellen had us and Anthony and Lori over to her house for lunch. Mary Ellen and I don't go to the same church, and we both lead such busy lives, that even though we only live 12 miles apart, we do not spend as much time together as we'd like to. We all appreciate her efforts to keep our far-flung family connected.

I forgot to get my camera out until lunch was over and Anthony and Lori had already left to go back to their home in State College. So no pictures of them today.

Destiny loves Mary Ellen's house, with it's big basement and the open stairs and second-floor loft.

We took Destiny back home to Reading this evening and now Dick is heading to bed. He has a FUN week ahead. He's leaving at 4 Am for the Baltimore airport and FLORIDA!! I've been thinking during these months since he lost his job, that I wish he could use some of this time off to visit our kids in Florida. He just might end up getting a job in which he would have no paid vacation for an entire year. But at the same time, buying an airline ticket right now seemed out of the question. Last Sunday evening Lisa called (after she learned that Dick did not get that job we were really hoping for) and wondered if they could fly him down to do a few jobs for them. Because of deer hunting coming up next week (which Dick would NEVER miss for a trip to Florida!), we decided that this would be the week. He'll spend Thanksgiving Day with them and with Jeremy. And I'll have Thanksgiving with some of our other kids up here. He'll come back to PA on Friday, just in time for a very important play-off football game at Hershey.

So, like the good wife that I am, I'll joyfully suffer the sub-freezing temps and the bad roads we're to get this week, while he goes down to temps that will be in the 70's and a little girl that is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her pepaw. It's okay, really it is. I made many more trips down there than he did this past year, and I'm really happy that he's getting this opportunity. Thank you, Lisa and George!